18 year-old Ebby Jane Steppach was last seen on October 24th, 2015 in her hometown of Little Rock, Arkansas. On the previous day, October 23rd, Ebby sent her stepfather Michael a text message stating she had been assaulted, and that the person who assaulted her recorded a video of it on his cell phone. Michael urged her to call the police, and she told him she already had and was planning to go to the station to officially file a report. The following day—the day of her disappearance—Michael and Ebby were supposed to meet at Ebby’s grandmother’s house. However, when Michael showed up, Ebby had already come and gone. According to Ebby’s brother Trevor—with whom she was living—she never returned home after going to her grandmother’s and she has not been seen since.
Family members made many unsuccessful attempts to get in touch with Ebby the rest of that afternoon and all throughout the next day, until she finally answered a phone call from her brother on the evening of October 25th. The two spoke for four or five minutes, and her brother said she sounded groggy and disoriented. He also said that Ebby kept saying that she was outside of his house—but she wasn’t—and she was unable to say where she really was and who she was with. That was the last time she has been heard from.
A few days later, Ebby’s car was found abandoned behind a high school in Little Rock. The car was running, but Ebby was nowhere to be found. Her belongings, including her cellular phone and contact lenses, were found inside the car. Despite this, police still initially treated her disappearance as a runaway case. Her family does not believe she ran away and fear she has been trafficked. Police are now treating her case as an endangered missing person.